Gulf in the News – September 30, 2013

Sharjah delegation arrives in US for roadshow

Source: Gulf News (Read full story)

Sharjah’s largest ever delegation, comprising more than 20 government and private organisations, arrived in Washington, D.C. on Friday, for the first roadshow in the US organised by the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq) under the slogan, ‘Sharjah — Promising Opportunities, Global Horizons’. Taking place from Monday until October 4, the roadshow aims to promote Sharjah’s investment, business and cultural offerings — as well as to explore avenues of cooperation with US companies and organisations.

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Dr. John Duke Anthony on the U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum

Third Ministerial Meeting of the U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum in New York City on September 26, 2013. Photo: U.S. State Department.

Yesterday marked another significant event in the evolution of the U.S. relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. GCC Foreign Ministers, GCC Secretary General Dr. Abdul Latif Bin Rashid Al Zayani, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel met in New York for the Third Ministerial Meeting of the U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum. The forum was established in March 2012 “to deepen strategic cooperation and coordination of policies to advance shared political, military, security, and economic interests in the Gulf region, foster enhanced stability and security throughout the Middle East, and strengthen the close ties between the GCC and the United States.”

National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Founding President and CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony, the only American to have been invited to each of the GCC’s Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the GCC’s inception in 1981, remarked that: “This meeting represents another significant step toward placing the relationship between the U.S. and the GCC on a more solid and enduring foundation. The growing U.S. awareness of the GCC is vital. It is hard to imagine an organization, geographically significantly larger than all of Western Europe combined, that has a larger global reach — in terms of its internationally-oriented policies and positions, in terms of its actions and attitudes — regarding its members and billions of other people’s issues, regarding its members and billions of other people’s legitimate needs and concerns, and regarding its members and billions of other people’s legitimate interests and national development processes as well as foreign policy objectives.”

Gulf Cooperation Council

Dr. Anthony added that, “[l]est one regard the GCC as a still evolving and relatively insignificant entity when it comes to major matters of importance and interest to the world, one need only ponder the following. For example, the GCC, in cooperation with the League of Arab States, the United States, and NATO, played a formidable transitional role in the situation in Libya in 2011; the GCC countries were the first to pledge billions in economic stabilization support, humanitarian aid, and developmental assistance to Egypt’s massively impoverished people; the GCC’s central role — personally and especially that of GCC Secretary General Dr. Al Zayani — in brokering the peaceful transition in Yemen’s presidential power in 2011; and the GCC’s extraordinary example of monetary, fiscal, and overall financial and economic stability from 2008 onwards despite the economic upheavals in practically every place else in the world.”

Posted below are links to remarks by Dr. Abdel Aziz Abu Hamad Aluwaisheg, GCC Assistant Secretary General for Negotiations and Strategic Dialogue, made at the National Council’s 21st Annual Policymakers Conference on Arab-U.S. relations on October 26, 2012, along with the full text of a Joint Communique issued following the Third Ministerial Meeting for the U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum September 26, 2012 in New York.

Remarks from Dr. Abdel Aziz Abu Hamad Aluwaisheg at the 21st Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference:

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Gulf in the News – September 27, 2013

3rd US-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum

Source: SUSRIS (Read full story)

A joint communique from the second ministerial meeting of the U.S.-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum, on October 1, 2012, described the purposes of the effort: “The Forum was launched in March 2012 to deepen strategic cooperation and coordination of policies to advance shared political, military, security, and economic interests in the Gulf region, foster enhanced stability and security throughout the Middle East, and strengthen the close ties between the GCC and the United States.” Aluwaisheg said the move probably reflected Washington’s recognition of the growing role of the GCC and its increased cohesiveness, coupled with the heightened threats in the region.

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Council Chronicle Vol. 7, No. 1 (2013) Now Available

Model Arab League Student Leadership Development ProgramThe National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations is pleased to provide the twentieth edition of the Council Chronicle, the Council’s periodic newsletter. The Chronicle seeks to keep the Council’s alumni, donors, and other supporters informed and updated. One among other efforts to do so on an ongoing basis is achieved by presenting highlights and special reports on the Council’s programs, events, and activities. For new readers interested in learning more about the Council’s vision and mission, together with the ways and means it utilizes to pursue both objectives, please visit the Council’s website at ncusar.org.

ACCESS Council Chronicle Vol. 7, No. 1 (2013) (.pdf – 1.4 MB)

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“Navigating Arab-U.S. Relations: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities” – 22nd Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference – Oct. 22-23 in Washington, DC

2013 Arab-U.S. Policymakers ConferenceThe National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ 22nd Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference, entitled “Navigating Arab-U.S. Relations: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,” is scheduled for October 22-23, 2013 in Washington, DC. Register now to join Arab and American leaders from government, the military, business, and academe as they share privileged information, insight, and recommendations that are vitally important to the definition of issues, the ordering of priorities, and the direction of policy formulation and implementation in American and Arab governments alike. The conference will provide attendees with two-days of shared ideas, intense discussions and debate, and extensive networking.

Featured Speakers Include:

 

HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Sa'ud HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Sa’ud

His Royal Highness Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Sa’ud served as the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United States from 2005 to 2007. From 1977 to 2001, he served as the Director General of the General Intelligence Directorate, the Kingdom’s main foreign intelligence service. Prince Turki is one of the founders of the King Faisal Foundation and is the Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh. Prince Turki serves as a member of the Boards of Trustees of the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies.

 

General Lloyd J. Austin III General Lloyd J. Austin III

General Lloyd J. Austin III assumed command of United States Central Command (CENTCOM), which has a wide-ranging area of responsibility for 20 countries in the Middle East and southwest Asia, on March 22, 2013. He was previously the 33d Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. General Austin led the 3rd Infantry Division in the opening months of the Iraq war where he earned a Silver Star for valor. He later commanded divisions in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and commanded U.S. Forces-Iraq from September 2010 through the completion of the mission in December 2011.

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Gulf in the News – September 25, 2013

Discussions continue on GCC security agreement

Source:Kuwait Times (Read full story)

MP Khalil Al-Saleh urged the parliamentary foreign affairs committee not to rush its report on the GCC security agreement until they ensured it matched Kuwait’s constitutional regulations. Al- Saleh also told reporters that the agreement would be discussed today and that all security-related bodies should be invited to the meeting, namely the ministers of foreign affairs and interior. He also wondered why it took the government so long to endorse it if it did not contradict the Constitution. “This treaty includes disastrous articles”, he underlined reminding that until last May when some of its articles were amended, Kuwait was the only GCC country that did not sign the treaty approved in Riyadh in 1994 as some of its articles contradicted Kuwait’s Constitution.

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Gulf in the News – September 24, 2013

Kerry thanks UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah

Source: The National (Read full story)

The US secretary of state John Kerry has thanked Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the Foreign Minister, for the UAE’s support for efforts to hold Bashar Al Assad accountable for using chemical weapons in Syria, as well as its backing for peace negotiations in Geneva to end the civil war there. During bilateral talks on Sunday, Sheikh Abdullah and Mr Kerry also affirmed the importance of Washington’s insistence on a binding, verifiable removal of Syria’s chemical weapons, a US state department official said. Mr Kerry met officials from a number of Arab countries to discuss issues likely to be addressed by the US president Barack Obama’s speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, including Syria, Egypt and the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

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Gulf in the News – September 23, 2013

King Abdullah lends new dimension to unification

Source: Arab News (Read full story)

 The Kingdom’s National Day, celebrated on Sept. 23, has come a long way in broadening the concept of unification over the years.  Though it meant unifying the disparate sheikhdoms into territorial integrity under its founder, late King Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al-Saud, its implications across the socioeconomic and cultural spectrum, however, were not lost on the successive rulers in the House of Saud. It was Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah who fine-tuned the definition of unification as an operating philosophy. After all, a country’s unity and territorial integrity demands that the various elements involved in holding it together — from demographic to socio-economic — should also be reinforced in the national interest.

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